To the Soldiers and Sailors

Written:Written between April 11 and 14 (24 and 27), 1917Published:First published in 1925 inLenin Miscellany IV.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 24,

      pages124-126.Translated:Isaacs BernardTranscription\Markup:UnknownPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      1999

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Comrades,soldiers! Comrades, sailors!

Thecapitalist newspapers, fromRechdown toRusskaya
Volya,are carrying on a most shameless campaign of
lies and slander concerning the passage through Germany of
myself and thirty other emigrants.

Thecapitalist newspapers shamelessly lie when they assort or
insinuate that we enjoyed certain inadmissible or unusual
favours from the German Government, a government which we
consider just as predatory, just as criminal, as all the other
capitalist governments who are carrying on the present war.

Richmen having “connections” with high-ranking officials of the
tsarist monarchy, men like the liberal professor Kovalevsky,
friend of Milyukov and Co., have been constantly negotiating
with the German Government through the agency of the tsarist
Russian Government with a view to arranging for an exchange of
Russians captured by the Germans, and Germans captured by the
Russians.

Whythen should emigrants, who have been compelled to live
abroad because of their struggle against the tsar, not have the
right to arrange for an exchange of Russians for Germanswithoutthe government’s aid?

Whyhas the government of Milyukov and Co. not admitted into
Russia Fritz Platten, the Swiss socialist, who travelled with us
and who had negotiated the agreement with the German Government
concerning the exchange?

Thegovernment lies when it spreads rumours that Platten is a
friend of the Germans. This is sheer slander. Platten is the
friend of the workers and the enemy of the capitalists ofallcountries.

Thecapitalists lie when they circulate rumours that we are for
a separate peace with the Germans, that we conferred or wanted
to confer in Stockholm with those German socialists who sided
withtheir owngovernment.

Thisis a libellous lie. We did not participate and shall not
participate in any conferences with such socialists. We look
upon the socialists of all countries who are helpingtheir
ownrespective capitalists to carry on this criminal war as
traitors to the cause of socialism.

Onlythose socialists are our friends who, likeKarl
Liebknecht, condemned to hard labor by the predatory German
Government, rise againsttheir owncapitalists.

Wedo not want a separate peace with Germany, we want peace forallnations, we want the victory of the workers ofallcountries over the capitalists ofallcountries.

TheRussian capitalists are lying about us and slandering us,
just as the German capitalists are slandering Liebknecht. The
capitalists lie when they say that we want discord and enmity
between the workers and the soldiers.

Itis not true! We want the workers and the soldiers tounite.We want tomake it clearto the members
of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies that it istheseSoviets that must wieldfullstate
power.

Thecapitalists are slandering us. They have sunk so low in
their shamelessness that not a single bourgeois newspaper has
reprinted fromIzvestiaour report concerning our journey and the decision of the
Executive Committee of the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies.[See:How we
Arrived]

Everyworker and every soldier knowshisSoviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. It was to the Executive
Committee of this Soviet that we made our report the day after
our arrival. The report appeared inInvestia.[1]Why is it
thatnot a singlecapitalist paper has reprinted this
report?

Becausethese papers are spreading lies and slander and are
afraid that our report to the Executive Committee will expose
the deceivers.

Whyis it that not a single paper has reprinted thedecisionof the Executive Committee concerning our
report, a decision which was published in the same issue ofIzvestia?

Becausethis decision nails the lies of the capitalists and
their newspapers, in that it demands that the government take
steps for the return of the emigrants.

Izvestiahas published a protest against Trotsky’s
arrest by the English; it has published a letter by Zurabov
exposing Milyukov’s lies; it has also published a telegram from
Martov on the same subject.

Soldiersand sailors! Do not believe the lies and slander of the
capitalists! Expose the deceivers, who are trying to suppress
the truth published inIzvestia!

[1][PLACEHOLDER.]—Ed.